Opening a Political Account: The Fractured Narrative of an Insecure Author

This is the final version of the article. Available from Anthony Burke University of Adelaide (Australia) via the link in this record

American foundations in the Great Bear Rainforest: Philanthrocapitalism, governmentality, and democracy

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Environmental campaigns to save the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) in British Columbia, Canada faced complex ecological, socio-economic, and political challenges that made traditional models of protected areas unfeasible. Between 2001 and 2007, the Government of British Columbia announced commitments to a series of conservancies, to “government-to-government” negotiations with First Nations, and to ecosystem-based management and sustainable development in the remaining region, supported by a $120 million Conservation Opportunities Fund (COF). This innovative policy solution developed out of complex negotiations between ENGOs, industry, First Nations, local communities, and the province. American charitable foundations funded the campaigns of environmental nonprofit organizations (ENGOs) and contributed substantial amounts to the conservation-financing fund. While their role is frequently noted, it has not been adequately studied. Engaging the scholarly and professional conversations about the neoliberal underpinnings of philanthrocapitalism or venture philanthropy, I argue that the lens of governmentality – the techniques and rationalities of governance that produce and normalize patterns of thought and behavior – draws attention to discursive as well as financial circulations, to agonistic relations and negotiations, and to processes of inclusion and exclusion. I then trace the circulation of financial resources and discursive representations between foundations and ENGOs between 1997 and 2007. Given concerns that neoliberal philanthropy may narrow ENGO campaigns and conservation solutions to those most amenable to market relations and may institutionalize neoliberal rationalities within recipient organizations, this paper raises crucial questions about the growing adherence to philanthrocapitalism within the foundations involved and the formation, articulation, and inclusion/exclusion of ENGO voices in the process of negotiating the made-in-BC solution

The “missing” politics of whiteness and rightful presence in the settler colonial city

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Sage publications via the DOI in this record.This paper engages the global nexus of colonization, racialization, and urbanization through the settler colonial city of Kelowna, British Columbia (BC), Canada. Kelowna is known for its recent, rapid urbanization and for its ongoing, disproportionate ‘whiteness,’ understood as a complex political geography that enacts boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. The white urban identity of Kelowna defines Indigenous and migrant communities as ‘missing’ or ‘out-of-place,’ yet these configurations of ‘missing’ are politically contested. This paper examines how differential processes of racialization and urbanization establish the whiteness of this settler-colonial city, drawing attention to ways that ‘missing’ communities remake relations of ‘rightful presence’ in the city, against dominant racialized, colonial, and urban narratives of their absence and processes of their displacement. Finally, this paper considers how a politics of ‘rightful presence’ needs to be reconfigured in the settler-colonial city, which itself has no rightful presence on unceded Indigenous land

IRAS asteroid families

The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) sampled the entire asteroid population at wavelengths from 12 to 100 microns during its 1983 all sky survey. The IRAS Minor Planet Survey (IMPS) includes updated results for more recently numbered as well as other additional asteroids with reliable orbital elements. Albedos and diameters were derived from the observed thermal emission and assumed absolute visual magnitudes and then entered into the IMPS database at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) for members of the Themis, Eos, Koronis and Maria asteroid families and compared with their visual colors. The IMPS results for the small (down to about 20 km) asteroids within these major families confirm trends previously noted for their larger members. Each of these dynamical families which are defined by their similar proper elements appears to have homogeneous physical properties

Total Synthesis of (–)-Anaferine: A Further Ramification in a Diversity-Oriented Approach

The piperidine ring is a widespread motif in several natural bioactive alkaloids of both vegetal and marine origin. In the last years, a diversity-oriented synthetic (DOS) approach, aimed at the generation of a library of piperidine-based derivatives, was developed in our research group, employing commercially available 2-piperidine ethanol as a versatile precursor. Here, we report the exploration of another ramification of our DOS approach, that led us to the stereoselective total synthesis of (\u2013)-anaferine, a bis-piperidine alkaloid present in Withania somnifera extract. This natural product was obtained in 9% overall yield over 13 steps, starting from a key homoallylic alcohol previously synthesised in our laboratory. Therefore, the collection of piperidine-derivatives accessible from 2-piperidine ethanol was enriched with a new, diverse scaffold

Theoretical advances on Economic Model Predictive Control with time-varying costs

© 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Federation of Automatic Control.Economic Model Predictive Control is a technique for optimization of economic revenues arising from controlled dynamical processes that has established itself as a variant of standard Tracking Model Predictive Control. It departs from the latter in that arbitrary cost functions are allowed in the formulation of the stage cost. This paper takes a further step in expanding the applicability of Economic Model Predictive Control by illustrating how the paradigm can be adapted in order to accommodate time-varying or parameter-varying costs

A SIMPLE STOCHASTIC MODEL FOR THE SARS-COV-2 EPIDEMIC CURVE

An epidemic curve is a graphic depiction of the number of outbreak cases by date of illness onset, ordinarily constructed after the disease outbreak is over. However, a good estimate of the epidemic curve early in an outbreak would be invaluable to health care officials. On the other hand, from the end of February, the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Brazil seems to not following the Europe, or in particular, Italy or Spain. Even if less tests have been applied, there are less deaths occurring in Brazil than in both cited countries. However, due to the few applied tests, there is no certain planning on the real number of active cases. To estimate the number of future cases, epidemiologists make an educated guess as to how many people might become affected. We have proposed a simple fitting model using a simulated annealing technique, testing it with the South Korea data. We have tested and discussed the uncertainties of the model. We also have analyzed the trends in the confirmed cases using this model for the five most affected countries plus Brazil along several epidemic weeks